Hawker Chief Designer Sydney Camm’s Hurricane ranks with the most important aircraft designs in military aviation history. Designed in the late 1930s, when monoplanes were considered unstable and too radical to be successful, the Hurricane was the first British monoplane fighter and the first British fighter to exceed 483 kilometers (300 miles) per hour in level flight. Hurricane pilots fought the Luftwaffe and helped win the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940.

This Mark IIC was built at the Langley factory, near what is now Heathrow Airport, early in 1944. It served as a training aircraft during the World War II in the Royal Air Force’s 41 OTU.

The P-61 Black Widow was the first U.S. aircraft designed to locate and destroy enemy aircraft at night and in bad weather, a feat made possible by the use of on-board radar. The prototype first flew in 1942. P-61 combat operations began just after D-Day, June 6, 1944, when Black Widows flew deep into German airspace, bombing and strafing trains and road traffic. Operations in the Pacific began at about the same time. By the end of World War II, Black Widows had seen combat in every theater and had destroyed 127 enemy aircraft and 18 German V-1 buzz bombs.

The Museum’s Black Widow, a P-61C-1-NO, was delivered to the Army Air Forces in July 1945. It participated in cold-weather tests, high-altitude drop tests, and in the National Thunderstorm Project, for which the top turret was removed to make room for thunderstorm monitoring equipment.

Image by dctim1
Overhead view of an engineering back-up of a Viking Lander probe, on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Viking was the first attempt by the United States to study Mars close-up.

Viking 1 was launched on August 20, 1975, and Viking 2, was launched on September 9, 1975. Both probes had the same structure: An orbiter, which would map Mars photographically and via radar from low orbit, and a lander.

The Viking Lander was released from the orbiter encased in a heat shield. Once it got low enough, the heat shields were released and a parachute deployed. As the lander neared the surface, the parachute was released and retrorockets fired to bring the lander down to a soft landing.

The Viking Landers were powered by small nuclear reactors, containing plutonium-238.

Each lander had a UHF antenna that provided a one-way uplink to the orbiter using a 30 watt radio. But they also had a 20-watt S-band transmitter and an omnidirectional low-gain S-band antenna, so they could continue functioning even if the orbiters did not.

Data was stored on a 40-Mbit tape recorder. The simple computer had a 6000-word command word memory.

The Landers studied the biology, chemical composition, meteorology, seismology, magnetic properties, appearance, and physical properties of Mars. For photographs of the Martian surface, each lander carried two 360-degree cameras, a seismometer, and magnifying mirror. A soil sampler arm with collector head, temperature sensor, and magnet extended from one side. A meteorology boom (with temperature, wind direction, and wind velocity sensors) extended from one of the lander legs. An interior compartment had the biology testing chamber, a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer, and an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer.

The Viking 2 lander ceased to function on April 11, 1980 — 3 years, 7 months, and 8 days after landing. The failure was because its batteries failed to recharge.

The Viking 1 lander failed on November 13, 1982 — after 6 years, 3 months, and 22 days. A computer programmer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory accidentally told it to point its antenna at the soil. Communication was broken, and could not be re-established.

Honda Insight 25.03.2011 20110325-DSC_1298

Image by Owen Mathias
The original Insight had a conventional manual transmission. Starting with the 2001 model, a CVT variant of the Insight was available; the CVT is similar to that used in the Honda Civic Hybrid and the Honda Logo. A traditional transmission shifts between a fixed set of engine-to-wheel ratios; however, a CVT allows for an infinite set of ratios between its lowest gear and its highest. A feature shared by the two hybrids (and now appearing in others) is the ability to automatically turn off the engine when the vehicle is at a stop (and restart it upon movement). Since it is more powerful than most starters of conventional cars, the Insight’s electric motor can start the engine nearly instantaneously. The Integrated Motor Assist is run by an "Intelligent Power Unit (IPU)", a desktop computer-sized box. The Intelligent Power Unit, the Power control Unit, the Electronic Control Unit, the vehicle’s batteries, converter and a high-voltage inverter are all located under the cargo floor of the vehicle, behind the seats.

It is with deep sadness and regret that the family owned business of Peats ‘World of Electronics’, the long established and well-known Dublin electronics retail company is to seek the appointment of a Liquidator in an upcoming voluntary creditor’s liquidation.

The Chairman of the business, Ben Peat, briefed the company’s 75-staff today at the company’s head-office store in Parnell St and told staff that the company could not continue to trade in light of its current financial constraints confirming that the company’s eleven stores around Dublin have closed with immediate effect.

Mr Peat told staff that a combination of recession impacts, unsustainably high rental costs and a changing marketplace in which online shopping was eating into high street retailing, meant that the business cannot continue to trade going into the upcoming lean summer. Mr Peat said that “the business generated 60% of its annual sales in the period November to January, and that a summer’s spend could not carry the business, to allow it to continue. It is evident in our experience that consumers have little discretionary spend at this time and sales volumes are up to 50% down on peak 2007 spend, while in parallel it has not been possible to achieve appropriate rental adjustment to enable a profit margin to be achieved to sustain business viability. The sector in which we operate has been disproportionately affected by the downturn, if we don’t close now our capacity to settle our affairs to best effect will only further deteriorate”, Mr Peat said.

Mr Peat told staff that “Trade hit its peak in 2007, with turnover that year of €24m, it has since re-trenched to less than half for the current year” and thanking staff, customers and suppliers, he continued, “the Company had a fine heritage for quality, decency and value, it became a popular name on the Dublin retail landscape and it’s departure from the high-street will be a loss to the tradition of family retailing in Dublin. Thanking customers he said, it is with deep regret that we have to close the doors of our ‘world of electronics business’, – we have tried very hard to establish solutions with suppliers and landlords that could have brought balance and sustainability back into our business. We have implemented extensive cost-reduction at all levels including payroll and terms of employment, but unfortunately it is beyond our power to continue in operation and we have to protect our staff, creditors, debtors and legal interests to best possible effect and do right by all concerned as far as is both humanly and financially possible. We cannot allow our situation to deteriorate further – as we do not want to compromise our capacity to secure the best possible outcome for all out of what is a difficult situation”

Thanking staff for their support and loyalty in a number of cases for over thirty years, Mr Peat said that staff will be paid their entitlements and redundancy due in full, and asked for their support for both colleagues and the business in the coming days, while the business settled its affairs to the very best of its ability to do so. He commented that over the years Peat’s staff have always been exceptional, there was one big extended family within which three generations of the Peat family still currently work.

Peats began life in Parnell Street in 1934 when Brigit and William Peat set up shop to sell wet cell batteries, bicycles, furniture and prams. All six of their children joined the business and their youngest son, Ben Peat is the current chairman. In its early years the company began to develop the electronics side of the business selling radiograms, followed by three-in-one hi-fi systems and contemporary products including repair services, to the present day sales of an assembly of electronic home entertainment products including flat screen TV’s, cameras, computer laptops and accessories.

Peats’ eleven stores are located throughout Dublin, with its head office in Parnell St; the Company also has stores in Blanchardstown Shopping Centre, College Green, Rathmines, Swords and in the Whitewater Shopping Centre in Newbridge. It also operated a number of Sony Centre shops under the Sony Centre identity. These outlets are located in the Jervis Shopping Centre, on O’Connell St, in Dun Laoghaire, in the Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre and also on Stephen’s Green, close to the Shelbourne Hotel.

All stores have now been closed and telephone calls will automatically be directed to a call centre to accommodate any enquiries arising, so that they can be logged and dealt with as efficiently and as soon as possible.

In making enquiries customers are invited to call 01-9023718 or to Email: admin@peats.com

It is with deep sadness and regret that the family owned business of Peats ‘World of Electronics’, the long established and well-known Dublin electronics retail company is to seek the appointment of a Liquidator in an upcoming voluntary creditor’s liquidation.

The Chairman of the business, Ben Peat, briefed the company’s 75-staff today at the company’s head-office store in Parnell St and told staff that the company could not continue to trade in light of its current financial constraints confirming that the company’s eleven stores around Dublin have closed with immediate effect.

Mr Peat told staff that a combination of recession impacts, unsustainably high rental costs and a changing marketplace in which online shopping was eating into high street retailing, meant that the business cannot continue to trade going into the upcoming lean summer. Mr Peat said that “the business generated 60% of its annual sales in the period November to January, and that a summer’s spend could not carry the business, to allow it to continue. It is evident in our experience that consumers have little discretionary spend at this time and sales volumes are up to 50% down on peak 2007 spend, while in parallel it has not been possible to achieve appropriate rental adjustment to enable a profit margin to be achieved to sustain business viability. The sector in which we operate has been disproportionately affected by the downturn, if we don’t close now our capacity to settle our affairs to best effect will only further deteriorate”, Mr Peat said.

Mr Peat told staff that “Trade hit its peak in 2007, with turnover that year of €24m, it has since re-trenched to less than half for the current year” and thanking staff, customers and suppliers, he continued, “the Company had a fine heritage for quality, decency and value, it became a popular name on the Dublin retail landscape and it’s departure from the high-street will be a loss to the tradition of family retailing in Dublin. Thanking customers he said, it is with deep regret that we have to close the doors of our ‘world of electronics business’, – we have tried very hard to establish solutions with suppliers and landlords that could have brought balance and sustainability back into our business. We have implemented extensive cost-reduction at all levels including payroll and terms of employment, but unfortunately it is beyond our power to continue in operation and we have to protect our staff, creditors, debtors and legal interests to best possible effect and do right by all concerned as far as is both humanly and financially possible. We cannot allow our situation to deteriorate further – as we do not want to compromise our capacity to secure the best possible outcome for all out of what is a difficult situation”

Thanking staff for their support and loyalty in a number of cases for over thirty years, Mr Peat said that staff will be paid their entitlements and redundancy due in full, and asked for their support for both colleagues and the business in the coming days, while the business settled its affairs to the very best of its ability to do so. He commented that over the years Peat’s staff have always been exceptional, there was one big extended family within which three generations of the Peat family still currently work.

Peats began life in Parnell Street in 1934 when Brigit and William Peat set up shop to sell wet cell batteries, bicycles, furniture and prams. All six of their children joined the business and their youngest son, Ben Peat is the current chairman. In its early years the company began to develop the electronics side of the business selling radiograms, followed by three-in-one hi-fi systems and contemporary products including repair services, to the present day sales of an assembly of electronic home entertainment products including flat screen TV’s, cameras, computer laptops and accessories.

Peats’ eleven stores are located throughout Dublin, with its head office in Parnell St; the Company also has stores in Blanchardstown Shopping Centre, College Green, Rathmines, Swords and in the Whitewater Shopping Centre in Newbridge. It also operated a number of Sony Centre shops under the Sony Centre identity. These outlets are located in the Jervis Shopping Centre, on O’Connell St, in Dun Laoghaire, in the Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre and also on Stephen’s Green, close to the Shelbourne Hotel.

All stores have now been closed and telephone calls will automatically be directed to a call centre to accommodate any enquiries arising, so that they can be logged and dealt with as efficiently and as soon as possible.

In making enquiries customers are invited to call 01-9023718 or to Email: admin@peats.com

Image by USAG-Humphreys
Story and photo by Capt. Austin Liu
6-52 Air Defense Artillery Battalion

OSAN AIR BASE —Homesickness is common for young Soldiers arriving here for their first duty station.
Private First Class Ryan Winner was no stranger to that feeling. But what separates Winner from the others is that he turned his emotion into the motivation that propelled him to become the 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade Soldier of the Year during the annual competition held this month.
“This is a great moment in my life, I did this for my family and even though they are thousands of miles away, I know they are all very proud of me right now,” Winner said after taking the prestigious award.
Indeed, when asked what was the secret behind his success, the 25-year old communications specialist assigned to A Battery, 6-52 Air Defense Artillery Battalion, smiled and said that “his dedication to his family and God is what drove me every day to do my best in the Army.”
This same dedication also drove Winner to excel above his peers during the grueling week-long competition, which consisted of rifle marksmanship, Warrior Tasks and drills exercises, day and night land navigation course, first aid courses, various boards, and a culminating 12-mile forced ruck march.
Winner confidently outperformed his competitors in every event.
However, the top Soldier in the Dragon Brigade’s journey to success has not always been an easy one.
When Winner first arrived at the Republic of Korea, he was struck with loneliness unlike any he has ever experienced before.
“Korea was my first duty station after graduating from Advanced Individual Training,” said Winner, an Ohio native. “And being so far away from my family in a foreign nation was really frustrating to me.”
Winner, who came from a “very close-knit Christian family”, said, “I remember that my sister was getting married during that time when I first got to Korea, and the fact that I had to miss her wedding made the situation worse.”
“I think he was pretty shell-shocked from his first duty station during the initial few months in Korea,” said Sgt. Billy Smith, who has been a mentor and squad leader for the young Soldier since his arrival here. “But everyone saw that there is something in him that sets him apart from the rest … and he quickly rebounded.”
Winner quickly pulled himself up and began placing his attention on something else.
“One day, I heard about the Soldier of the Month Board that our unit does and I said to myself that I want to be part of that great honor,” Winner said. “I think the competitor inside of me really came out that day, and I knew that drive is what will get me through this difficult time.”
Winner began piling up accolade after accolade from various boards he won at the battalion level.
“I can only describe Winner as always going above and beyond in everything he does,” said Smith, who was his sponsor during most of the boards.
He continued, “Winner never ceases to amaze me. His calm demeanor and maturity really served as an inspiration to all in the unit. I think his devotion to his family and religion was the main reasons he did what he did.”
It is unusual in contemporary American society for a recent college graduate to enlist in the military and forgo the commissioning route.
But that was what Winner did after earning a computer science degree from Wright State University with a 3.6 grade point average.
As Winner received the award, he thought about his family back home.
“I called them and told them the good news the first opportunity I got,” he said. “And I remember that my mother was crying on the line out of pure joy.”

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Unreasonable at Sea, a floating incubator for tech startups, has selected its first group of companies to expand their business operations while cruising through the high seas.

Invited to join the sailing party are founders, venture capitalists, and students from Semester at Sea, a shipboard program for global study. The ship will call to 14 international ports to learn how to bring their business operations to new markets. At each stop, they’ll pitch their ideas to local politicians, entrepreneurs, and business leaders.

The accelerator describes itself as “mentorship driven” and recently announced its A-list advisors. Y Combinator has nothing on these mentors — there’s even an archbishop to assist entrepreneurs on their spiritual quest. South African activist and Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu is confirmed to join, alongside Megan Smith (vice president of business development at Google), Matt Mullenweg (founder of WordPress), George Kembel (cofounder of the Stanford d.School), Phil McKinney (VP and CTO at Hewlett-Packard), and other big names.

Unreasonable at Sea is the brainchild of Daniel Epstein, the man behind the Unreasonable Institute, and an alumni of the Semester at Sea program. “From the entrepreneur’s perspective, it’s an opportunity to experiment with products and technology internationally. Startups can take their technology to another market to see what works and walk out with a globally relevant product,” Epstein told VentureBeat in a recent interview.

The voyage is from January 6, 2013 to April 25, 2013. The entrepreneurs will sail across the Pacific and India Oceans, starting in San Diego, and ending their journey in Barcelona. The ship will stop in Hawaii, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and India.

Eleven startups survived the highly competitive application process:

Aquaphytex installs all-natural plant systems to purify water at scale without any chemicals or energy. It’s currently operating in four countries, providing clean drinking water to over 300,000 people, and made over ,000,000 in profit in the last three years.
Artificial Vision for the Blind uses artificial intelligence to help blind people see without surgery or invasive tech. It has developed a pair of glasses that has a camera, a mini-computer, and a transmitter that together, it says, activates the visual cortex of the brain and can enable blind people to see again — and read.
Damascus Fortune purifies carbon emissions and transforms them into a material to build cars, space ships, buildings, laptops, and mobile phones. It’s a Forbes “30 Under 30? company and recognized by MIT’s Technology Review as part of the “The Top 20 Innovators List.”
Evolving Technologies produces affordable medical technology and products to bring medical care to areas that are underserved. Its main product is a light, portable edoscopy for woman’s health. It claims the device is over 10 times cheaper than current market alternatives.
Innoz has 15 million active users across India submitting over half a million inquiries on their mobile SMS platform each day. Innoz is a mobile and wireless company, and it claims it’s transforming the mobile device into a learning tool by giving its users access to the Internet and all its information via SMS.
Prakti Design is a cookstove developer, designer, and manufacturer and distributor. Ranked as most efficient affordable stove in the world by Berkeley Labs, it has operations currently in five countries. It claims that over 250,000 meals served a day from their stoves.
Protei makes wind-powered, shape-shifting, open-source sailing robots used to sense and clean the ocean. This autonomous robot could help clean up oil spills and plastic in the ocean as well as collect invaluable data about the environment from the oceans.
Sasa is a mobile-based e-commerce marketplace that connects offline artisans to global consumers. It claims that it revolutionizes the supply chain into a peer-to-peer exchange and empowers women in Africa to create sustainable micro-enterprises.
Solar Ear produces affordable hearing aids and solar-powered battery chargers, made by the hearing impaired for the hearing impaired in developing countries. It has sold products in over 40 countries and has manufacturing facilities in two nations. It has generated over million in revenue.
The IOU Project says it’s dedicated to radically shifting the dynamics of supply chains in apparel. Through the creation of its own apparel company, the IOU Project focuses on bringing transparency into the supply chain and driving significantly more money into the producers’ hands. The platform it has built to do this could serve as a new industry standard as IOU will “white-label” it to all major apparel companies on earth.
Vita Beans Neural Solutions: Train a teacher and you will transform the lives of hundreds of students. This belief has led Vita Beans to create a “gamified” teaching software platform that is intuitive, affordable, and easily adopted by teachers, schools, and governments.

Image by the tartanpodcast
I bought the white MacBook in September 2006. It’s always been a top performer. Over the last couple of years it’s been the computer the kids have used and abused.

Last year the hard drive failed and I recently go around to buying a new one. Once fitted last week I wasn’t able to get Mac OS X to install from my drop in DVD due to it being scratched.

Today I had an appointment at the local Apple Store where the Genius installed Mac OS X 10.6 for me, but also noted that the top case was cracked at the palm rest. He also noticed that a couple of keys were sticking.

He cheerfully announced he’d get this fixed for me too.

90 minutes later I got a call from the store to say the laptop was ready. And I tell you what, it’s as good as new, what with the battery have been replaced a couple of years ago.

Goodbye old hottness, hello new hottness.

Image by starbright31
My mom’s new hottness, her sea-green iPod Nano. The Rio Carbon was her first mp3 player. It was a good mp3 player, but it went the way of most lithium-ion battery based products where the charging didn’t make much of a difference in keep it alive anymore. So goodbye trusty Rio Carbon, hello to the glorious Apple iPod Nano. You know what? This the 2nd iPod I’ve registered in my computer within the past five weeks.

I woke up and saw that the fog from the night before had frozen and made everything white. It was a great day for pictures in south Eastern Idaho, so I snagged my camera, a Tripod and took an extra battery.

That said, (and this is why I’ll never take wedding photos,) – after all was said and done, I didn’t take the time to check it, and my camera was taking low res shots the whole morning! Oh well, it’s great for computers, but terrible for printing.

I woke up and saw that the fog from the night before had frozen and made everything white. It was a great day for pictures in south Eastern Idaho, so I snagged my camera, a Tripod and took an extra battery.

That said, (and this is why I’ll never take wedding photos,) – after all was said and done, I didn’t take the time to check it, and my camera was taking low res shots the whole morning! Oh well, it’s great for computers, but terrible for printing.

I woke up and saw that the fog from the night before had frozen and made everything white. It was a great day for pictures in south Eastern Idaho, so I snagged my camera, a Tripod and took an extra battery.

That said, (and this is why I’ll never take wedding photos,) – after all was said and done, I didn’t take the time to check it, and my camera was taking low res shots the whole morning! Oh well, it’s great for computers, but terrible for printing.

I woke up and saw that the fog from the night before had frozen and made everything white. It was a great day for pictures in south Eastern Idaho, so I snagged my camera, a Tripod and took an extra battery.

That said, (and this is why I’ll never take wedding photos,) – after all was said and done, I didn’t take the time to check it, and my camera was taking low res shots the whole morning! Oh well, it’s great for computers, but terrible for printing.

I woke up and saw that the fog from the night before had frozen and made everything white. It was a great day for pictures in south Eastern Idaho, so I snagged my camera, a Tripod and took an extra battery.

That said, (and this is why I’ll never take wedding photos,) – after all was said and done, I didn’t take the time to check it, and my camera was taking low res shots the whole morning! Oh well, it’s great for computers, but terrible for printing.

I woke up and saw that the fog from the night before had frozen and made everything white. It was a great day for pictures in south Eastern Idaho, so I snagged my camera, a Tripod and took an extra battery.

That said, (and this is why I’ll never take wedding photos,) – after all was said and done, I didn’t take the time to check it, and my camera was taking low res shots the whole morning! Oh well, it’s great for computers, but terrible for printing.